Ted Cruz's Threat To Shut Down The Government Is Brave And Principled — And That's Why Republicans Are Upset With Him

It's happening again. The clock is ticking amid yet another
fiscal showdown between President Obama and Congress, which is
making noises about shutting down the government, or not raising
the debt ceiling unless some concession is made.

The most famous of these showdowns came in the summer of 2011,
when the Tea Party-infused GOP took the debt ceiling fight down
to the wire, only to relent once Obama and the Democrats agreed
to automatic future spending cuts (which we now call the
sequester).

This time we're getting a fiscal two-step: At the end of
September, the government will shut down unless a "Continuing
Resolution" is passed. A little bit after that the U.S. will hit
the debt ceiling.

Not only do we have two "events" in rapid succession, but there's
a twist:

Texas Senator Ted Cruz and a band of fellow travelers
are promising to block the continuing resolution (in other words
shut down the government) unless somehow the Congress passes (and
Obama signs) a bill that would defund Obamacare.

Now if you think there's any chance that Obama will sign a bill
to defund his signature program, on the eve of it going into
effect, you're probably living on another planet. But on the
other hand, Republicans in the age of Obama are not known for
being compromisy. It's smash-nose politics all the way down.

Except, oddly, the Republican party is pissed off at Ted Cruz.

See, Cruz has been
making life kind of miserable for a lot of House Republicans
all summer by holding rallies, and pressuring them to vote to
defund Obamacare. Essentially he's being an interloper from the
Senate, getting in the House's business. Eventually, this week
they did successfully hold a vote that would keep the government
funded at current levels of spending, with the exception of
Obamacare.

But after that it all went downhill for Cruz and the GOP because
now
the bill has no chance to pass in the Senate. House
Republicans (and also conservative pundits) are flipping out at
Cruz because they see only bad options from here. Either
conservatives surrender on the issue, or there's a government
shutdown.

And it's this government shutdown possibility that has everyone
freaking the hell out.

Charles Krauthammer
declared that the Republican party will end up as "sushi" if
this fight to defund Obamacare ends up shutting down the
government. The
conservative WSJ editorial page calls this a "kamikaze"
mission that will play right into Obama's hands.

None of the arguments we've seen actually say that a government
shutdown would be bad for the country (although it would depress
government spending) ... all the arguments are about how bad a
shutdown would be for the GOP and how it would be good for Obama.

And this gets to the nut of why Republicans are so upset. For the
first time since the Tea Party had its big win in 2010, a wing of
the party is actually engaging in a fight that puts the party at
risk.

In the 2011 debt ceiling fight, the GOP was essentially
free-rolling (meaning playing risk-free). They could threaten to
not raise the debt ceiling knowing that Obama could not afford to
actually let that happen. And they knew that the public didn't
understand what the debt ceiling was (the public still doesn't),
which is why polls show the public not in favor of raising the
debt ceiling, even though the consequences of not raising it
would be quite severe (far more than a government shutdown, which
can be done in an orderly manner, and which doesn't put the
service of U.S. debt at risk).

Obama can afford to let a government shutdown happen (at least
for a few days). The GOP would have to live with what it wrought,
and the public would understand exactly what was going on.
Threatening to shut down the government over Obamacare is not
free-rolling. It's a threat with real consequences. It's a
principled threat. That's why your Krauthammers and your WSJs and
your Jonah Goldbergs (who says Cruz is engaged in a
"long con") are screaming bloody murder.

Unlike the debt ceiling battlers, Cruz is putting principles over
his party. And that has people apoplectic.

Ezra Klein makes the correct point at Wonkblog that it's John
Boehner who is being more irresponsible than Cruz, because
Boehner actually is promising a fight over the debt ceiling
(which will come up later) and with the debt ceiling you have the
threat of a default and financial calamity.

Defenders of the Boehner/debt ceiling approach say that such a
fight isn't bad for the country because ultimately the debt
ceiling will get raised somehow.

But this is crap. First of all, it's logically inconsistent to
threaten to not raise the debt ceiling (unless some demands are
met) and then argue that such a threat is harmless because
ultimately you're going to not follow through with it. Either
you're making the threat or not. And if you're making the threat,
then you're threatening for the U.S. to not pay some of its
bills.

But furthermore, just the debt ceiling fight itself has
consequences. Summer 2011 showed a collapse in consumer
confidence (red line) and what might be characterized as a crash
in the stock market (blue line).

FRED

Bottom line: There are two possible battles for a fiscal fight.

One hurts America, but leaves the Republican party looking okay.
That's fighting over the debt ceiling, which most people don't
grasp.

The other causes a brief government shutdown, while making the
GOP look terrible on an issue that people grasp.

Cruz is launching his fight on the one that makes the party look
bad, and that's why conservatives are flipping out at him.

It's too much to ask that Washington not have these dumb fights.
But if you're going to have one, it should be the one that
doesn't pose major systemic risk to the system. Cruz is fighting
the right one.